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	<title>miriku.com &#187; word choice</title>
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		<title>Theevolution</title>
		<link>http://miriku.com/wp/2010/01/theevolution/</link>
		<comments>http://miriku.com/wp/2010/01/theevolution/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:12:15 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hawking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[word choice]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[the human race is not "entering a new phase of evolution", we just stopped evolving and are doing something else. ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>stephen hawking, in a <a href="http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/01/stephen-hawking-the-human-species-has-entered-a-new-stage-of-evolution-the-daily-galaxy-top-story-of.html" target="_self">lecture</a> is saying that the human race has &#8216;entered a new stage of evolution&#8217;, in that we are now taking control of our genetics directly. yes and no, his point is entirely accurate and valid, but his word choice is wrong. people abuse the word evolution because it&#8217;s the only one they know to describe change (perhaps &#8216;improvement&#8217;) of a population over time.</p>
<p>look, you wouldn&#8217;t say &#8220;bob has entered a new stage of walking, he has a bike now&#8221;, you would say &#8220;bob doesn&#8217;t walk places as much, he now bikes&#8221;. similarly we&#8217;re no longer evolving, we&#8217;re now doing something else. coin a word, or just say &#8216;custom designing ourselves&#8217;. evolution requires natural selection and that force nowadays has very little effect on humans, in a world with health care and birth control.</p>
<p>we can&#8217;t understand the future by simply blindly shoehorning our reality into outdated concepts and terms. so yes, partially this is me just being a stickler on word choice, but partly we also need to be aware that we shape our thinking in terms of things we know, and there&#8217;s no reason to give people wrong conceptions on what&#8217;s going on.</p>
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